Branches, Trees, Roots

There is a lot of grumbling going on around Long Island as a small army of men and woman go about cleaning up the mess left by hurricane Irene. I was in the dark for three days and it was not a pleasant experience. I can only imagine how difficult it is for those with special needs. Even so I am always surprised by the response of the public to those who did not create this problem, are doing their best to correct it and yet suffer the wrath of those who think that berating these workers will somehow get their lights back on.

Maybe it's me but I can't help but wonder where this attitude has come from. Could it be the endless stream of whiners that flood the airwaves and fill the television screens these days? 

It was thirty years ago that Bruce Springsteen held a benefit show for the Vietnam Veterans. This was Springsteen's coming out party as a true social activist and, as a side note, certainly one of the top-ten shows of his career. If you have a chance to dig it up you'll find it well worth your time. A little known fact is that Springsteen single handedly saved the Vietnam Veterans Association, placing a call to them on the very day that they were going to close up shop due to financial problems and a lack of support. Springsteen opened the show with an exceptionally accurate view of the plight of the Vets and then introduced Robert Mueller, a Vietnam vet, who introduced the event and in a few minutes explained what everything was about in the most eloquent way. The two speeches are short, to the point and truly uplifting.

The band then kicks into John Fogerty's "Who'll Stop The Rain" and from the opening note you can hear that, to a man, the E-Streeters were well aware of the importance of that evening's performance.            

Remembering that night and the mood of the country at that time, Mueller recently said that among the many, many obstacles that the returning vets had to deal with was that they were associated with the war it self instead of soldiers who were just doing their job. The fact is that a great part of why even the most ardent anti-war activists can now separate the troops from the mission is due to the work by the Vietnam Veterans groups.

If you will; don't hate the players, hate the game.

Now it's 30 years down the road and a lot of men and women still have nowhere to run, nowhere to go. But thanks to an August night in 1981 many were able to find a light to lead them out of the darkness and it was Bruce Springsteen, the E-Street Band and rock and roll that led the way. Like I said, check out the show if you can. When rock and roll is delivering a message it can be powerful stuff indeed.

Some guy, who may very well traveled from out of town, who is cutting down branches today somewhere on Long Island is certainly different than a nineteen year old who was sent off to a foreign land to fight for his country, but they are both men with a job to do - and they both deserve your thanks and support.

Why Spotify will change your life - even if you never use it.

When I bought my car a few years ago it came with a 3-month free pass for XM radio, something I had no previous interest in and something that I had said time and time again that I would never subscribe to. Pay for radio? No way. Needless to say that within a week I was hooked and now I live in the Underground Garage and Outlaw Country. I am positively giddy over the fact that they will be adding a 24-7 channel built around Dylan's radio show.

When I first heard of Spotify I didn't see any reason why I would like that any better then the other subscription-based music services like Rhapsody and LaLa. After all, I have a huge music collection - over 50,000 songs in my iTunes library. I definitely embraced downloadable music - I am more than willing to give up the physical aspect of most recordings and when a package is worth buying for, well, the package, I'll buy it. But do I really need to pay for another music service - especially where I am in effect renting the music and not buying it?

Oh yeah.

Spotify delivers, big time. Think of an album or a song you want to hear and there it is. Take a few minutes and build a playlist that will last all day long. But Steve, what about those 50,000 songs of yours? Surely you have enough music to listen to, right?

The beauty here is that Spotify will be different things to different people. For the average person, five bucks a month to listen to whatever you want, whenever you want is a great deal. For people like me - who obviously have collected and purchased music all their life, there is still a great deal of music from their past that has yet to make the transition from vinyl to CD, much less from CD to digital. Its been a blast thinking of older LPs that I haven't bothered to digitize (a "best intentions" scenario if there ever was one), only to have them instantly appear on my desktop.

Right now I'm rocking the free version which lets you listen to as much as you want with short 15 second ads every 15 minutes or so. The five dollar a month buy in takes the ads away and ten bucks gets you the mobile app so you can listen via your phone. The paid versions also let you keep something like 3000 songs off line so you don't need an internet connection - great for traveling and all that.

The thing about subscription services is that eventually the prices will go up and should you decide to drop the service - you lose all of your music. That could certainly suck for some folks, but I have those 50,000 songs to fall back on.

Or I could take a long drive and listen to the XM.

I guess there's just a meanness in this world

I know that there are at least two sides to every story and that, usually, even the most unfathomable circumstances can be explained. As Mr. Holmes said, "Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth." Even so, I will never understand how one human being can inflect pain and injury on another without a real and true reason.

Believe me, I understand justice and I believe in it.

I have a friend who was attacked recently and beaten badly. He was blindsided - the victim of a coward who had only one goal - to do him harm. As I said up top, there may or may not be a reason that drove this madman to commit this crime, but one thing is certain - my friend did nothing to deserve this.

What is that allows a person to leave all reason behind and commit such a senseless act? Is it a chemical imbalance or some sort of bad wiring? Is it simply a lack of understanding of right vs wrong? Is society or his parents to blame? Or is it as Bruce Springsteen sings in "Nebraska" that "there's just a meanness in this world?"

I'm stumped. In the past few weeks, for whatever reason, bad news has affected me in ways that it hasn't before. It's just the sad truth that there is always a sad story in the paper and while they often caused me to pause and consider the family and friends of these unfortunate individuals, lately they linger longer in my thoughts. The nine-year-old boy lured into a car by a stranger. The insanity in Norway. A purse snatching in my hometown just a few blocks from my house. All strangers, but I kept imagining myself or my family in their place. It was if if there was a ever tightening circle of evil that was surrounding us.

Now I've seen it, if not first-hand very, very up close and it has chilled me to the bone.

Awesome!

Lately I find myself surrounded by all things awesome. I can't stop using that word and I've been called out on it a few times. Usually that would give me pause for thought, this time I just paused long enough to realize that I'm right - at this moment in my life there is awesomeness just about everywhere I look.

There is my awesome family, of course. But that's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about stuff.

First off my new iPhone. I bought the original on the day it came out and it served me very well. But my new one is AWESOME! I can't get over the quality of the video that I've shot and the photos are much improved as well. I have yet to experience the much reported connection problems and I still got a free case out of the deal - how awesome is that?

On the subject of all things Apple, the iPad is, in a word, awesome! Every week a new app comes out that blows my mind. A couple of weeks ago it was Flipboard which collects content from various sources and presents in a way that could only be delivered on the iPad, including your Facebook feed. This week it's Uzu - a totally awesome time waster that takes full advantage of the iPad's multi-touch capability and lets you create an on-screen "fireworks" display. My awesome six-year-old Liam showed me how to use it.

I recently got a new guitar tuner, the massively awesome PolyTune from TC Electronic. Unlike other tuners, with the PolyTune you just strum all six open strings and it instantly shows you which ones are out of tune! Until you use it, you won't know just how awesome this thing is!

The other day Lizz and I took her parent's out for their birthdays which are a few days apart from each other. We went to brunch at Robke's, where they extend their awesome ten dollar lunch menu with a bunch of black-board specials and a nice selection of five dollar cocktails. We have never been disappointed there and Robke's is the only place that I can truly say that everything on the menu is, well, awesome.

On Friday nights we have been taking advantage of the awesome little free music program in Northport village. This week it was an awesome bluegrass band which we enjoyed as we sat on a bench in the park and watched the awesome sunset frame our beautiful little harbor.

This past weekend my - if I may say this - awesome band, The Blaggards, played out at Nick's in Montauk. The weather, the crowd, the food, the drinks, the bartenders, the ride there and back and our super-talented friends were all absolutely awesome.

You may think that I'm exaggerating a bit with all this awesomality (I just made that word up - just like Sarah, who is most definitely NOT awesome), but believe me, I'm not. I didn't even mention 3D movies, butter your own pop corn, Elvis on the big screen, Stevia sweetened Frappucinos, setting my DVR from my phone, velcro, the NY Yankees, NYRMA, Mick's Fender Acoustasonic amp, $69 1TB hard drives, my new office or the new Elvis guitar picks that Melanie just gave me.

All awesome.

iWant

If you are one of the Apple faithful, then you pretty much think that they are going to change the world once again on January 27th when - if all of the buzz is correct - they announce the release of the mythical Apple tablet, possibly called the iSlate. I don't care what they call it - iWant it.

What has been described as an "overgrown" iPod touch will no doubt be one of the coolest products ever. I had absolutely no problem typing that previous sentence. After all, Apple has only had a few foul balls along the way in what has basically been a home run derby of technology. I have no doubt that I will be floored at what this thing will do besides all of the things I am taking for granted that it will do.

I was one of the first Mac owners. I have probably owned and/or worked on every model they have ever made, with the exception of the 20th Anniversary Mac and the Cube. I bought the original iPod and the iPhone on the day it was released. I own an Apple TV. My entire music library is based around iTunes and just surpassed 40,000 songs. I currently have six Macs in my house, though only 3 are truly in operation.

In the past few years, for whatever reasons, I have slowed down in regards to having the latest and greatest. I have not upgraded my iPhone, it works just fine for me. My last iPod is a bulky monster compared to the new models. My family iMac is - hold your breath - not aluminum. Even worse, since it is not an Intel based model, it won't run the latest OS, making me feel like I'm watching television in black and white when I check my email. While there is nothing to stop me from updating any of these machines I have held back.

But this new, un-seen device? iWant, iWant, iWant!

My wife will roll her eyes and wonder why. But when she gets her hands on it - and then realizes that it can most likely replace the iMac in the living room AND the big cabinet that holds it AND realizes that Liam will not only embrace it instantly but that it will very likely be the model for every computer he may ever use in his lifetime, well she may even admit that it's pretty darn cool.

Whatever it is.

Four, Calling Birds ...

During her holiday interview with President Obama, Oprah Winfrey asked what was his most memorable Christmas gift. For him, it was a basketball given to him by his father the year they met. That led me to ask myself that same question. 54 years of gifts - that is a lot to choose from. I've asked this question to a few friends and, for most of them, the answer doesn't come easily.

Not for me.

Over the years I have received plenty of memorable gifts. The James Bond attache case certainly is up there as I spent a great deal of time and effort trying to replace it, finally doing so last year. I thought I would never get one but I actually did and for much less than I thought it would cost me. That is another story.

For me, the one gift that stands out the most, that had the most profound effect on me and made impressions that still last till this day, was a copy of The White Album by the Beatles. If my parents had any idea about the changes that this record album would bring forth in my life I have no doubt that they would not have slipped under the tree back in 1968.

I had been a Beatles fan since I first heard them, hiding under the covers with my transistor radio. Seeing them on the Ed Sullivan show burned an image in my brain that not only gave me direction as to what I wanted to be and how I wanted to look, but gave me something that I could hold onto and claim as my own. Though their entire catalog would soon be familiar to me as my own skin, but in 1968 I didn't yet own every Beatles album. But this one - with the enclosed photos and poster which immediately went up on my bedroom wall - was special. It was massive - four sides, a collection of songs as diverse as I had ever heard. It would be years before I put together the whole story, how this was the beginning of the end, who actually played on what song and what some of the more arcane and inside references were all about. I was in the moment with this record and once again The Beatles were showing me a different way - actually in this case, many different ways - of how things were done.

It became the soundtrack of my life for what was a pretty incredible year. Men on the moon, Woodstock, Nixon, Vietnam - my 14 year-old brain was processing so much information so fast I am still surprised my head didn't explode. This was the year that the air guitar I had been playing since 1964 turned into a real guitar, an event that certainly was inspired by watching The Beatles on Sullivan and enforced by the White Album (by the way, I know the LP is actually titled "The Beatles" but it will always be the White Album to me). This album also made me realize that quite a few songs were either about or had references to sex - I remember my mom expressing her dissatisfaction from the other side of my bedroom door after hearing "Why Don't We Do It In The Road." It was only then I realized that most of the songs I listened to were actually about sex and even the ones that weren't, kind of were as well.

The White Album also showed me that people change and that change was not a bad thing. Soon we would start putting people into boxes and the concept of an artist embracing so many different styles would be labeled as having a "lack of focus." Like a great book, each time I listened I found something new, a hidden guitar lick or a lyric that I had missed. The musical references, both obvious and obscure, started me down paths that broadened my musical horizon. Similar to the way that the Harry Smith anthologies created a template for so many bands, I believe that The White Album launched another generation in many different directions.

I love the journey that I've been on for the past forty-one years and The White Album certainly has been a huge part of the map. While it may have been the "beginning of the end" for The Beatles, it was a new beginning for John, Paul, George, Ringo - and me.

The Big Night

As we approach my favorite day of the year, Christmas Eve, I find myself in that delicate balance of tradition vs change. This year there will be a little break in regards to tradition as we won't be gathering at my brother Don's house for dinner as we have for the past decade or so. I've always enjoyed the evening at their house - they have this wonderful, huge table that must seat twenty in their dining room and they are gracious hosts. But things are what they are. Thus the element of change - as in a change of location - and that's fine.

What's not going to change is the food. While I always enjoy getting together with the family - all right, while I sometimes enjoy getting together with the family, I have to admit that Christmas Eve is all about the food.

There are many origins of what is called the "feast of the seven fishes" a tradition that has roots in southern Italy. I don't know any of them. I'm not sure if we have seven "fishes" - we can count them later. I didn't pay much attention to this meal for the first 25 years or so of my life, and I am pretty sure it has remained the same for as long as I was around, probably even longer. However, once I came to my senses and realized what I was missing, I vowed never to miss it again and I've stuck to that vow.

For years my parents home - the house I grew up in - was where Christmas Eve was spent. A tiny cape, with no dining room, we managed to have not only our family of six, but as the years went by the numbers grew with assorted aunts and uncles, girlfriends - some of which became wives, leading the way to grand children. All of which crowded into our small living room which became the de-facto dining room, complete with the sofa, christmas tree and television set. It may have been tight, but it was never unbearable and the crowd just added to the spirit of the holiday - and it probably helped keep the house warm!

But the real heat was in the kitchen. This is where my mom cooked for the masses almost single-handedly. My dad's role in the holiday fare was the home-made panettone - a sweet bread that we enjoyed on Christmas morning - but that's another story. My mom's kitchen was - and still is - a one woman show and for years this was her "Big Night."

I've heard other Italians describe their meal and it seems to be more of an homage to gluttony with many breaks with tradition. While my mom served more food than anyone person has a right to eat, nothing is too heavy, no stuffed lobsters or errant trays of baked pasta. This is all about a selection of dishes that could easily stand alone, but work together wonderfully.

For me, this isn't an evening for antipasto. Yes, I'm a fan but there is a lot of food coming my way and I don't want to get filled up on the opening act. Plus, there is dessert on the other side of this pony, so lets just get to the main act. However there is a tray of olives, black and green and some fennel - Finnochio, or as translated into "Italian-American" - feh nook.

The meal begins with spaghetti that has been prepared with garlic, olive oil, anchovies and walnuts. Before you go "ewww … Anchovies!" know this: they are cooked down to be a flavor element of the sauce and the end result is to die for. The mixture is tossed with pasta and served with some of the pasta water on the side. While most people who try this are converted, there is always a bowl of spaghetti with butter and/or garlic and oil for those with less adventurous palettes. Here's a link to a recipe that is very close to my Mom's.

When this dish is right - and it's almost always right - you can just stop there. I have to force myself not to have a third helping ( a second is a given). I still can't figure out why we only eat this simple but incredible dish once a year.

From that plate it becomes all out madness - everything else comes to the table at once:

- Baccala (dried, salted cod that has been reconstituted and is served chilled over a lemony escarole salad). Surprisingly fresh and refreshing, but my least favorite dish.
- Homemade Seafood Salad (Insalata Frutti di Mare) with lobster, calamari, shrimp and Scungilli. Always unbelievable, best I've ever had.
- Scungilli Fra Diaovlo - In a sauce that will have you going through a loaf of crusty italian bread in no time, regardless of how tough or tender the conch may be.
- Flounder Fillets - breaded and fried to perfection. Seems like a bit-player but always welcome on my plate.
- Shrimp Scampi - may be the star of the meal and what garlic may have been invented for. Made in massive quantities to avoid fights.
- Broccoli - the only side dish and only vegetable if you don't count the escarole salad and the celery in the seafood salad. Par-boiled and served cold, tossed with garlic and lemon. Even my five-year old likes broccoli when Grandma makes it.

So, lets count the fish:
-Anchovies
-Cod
-Lobster
-Shrimp
-Flounder
-Scungilli
-Calamari

Whaddya know - Seven!

My mother turned out this meal year after year in her impossibly small kitchen and, as I said, almost single handily. After my father passed away and with my mother getting on a bit, my brother Don began to host the meal. My mother then began to oversee things with Don's wife Lorraine and their Daughter Lynn stepping up and lending a hand.

My mother is a fantastic cook. I can't even order some of the food that she makes in restaurants as I know that I will be disappointed. And as with any kitchen, you can easily have too many cooks. Believe me, while she was probably glad to step aside it - she is in her eighties - yet I know that it pained her to see any changes from the way she had done things for so many years. Thankfully - and this is in no way a slight to Lorraine or Lynn - my mother's hand was still guiding the meal.

This year things will be a bit different.

Time after time I have said to myself that I have to take some cooking lessons from my mom. I always get a laugh when I ask her about a recipe and she pulls out a yellowed news clipping from 50 years ago that she has tucked in some cookbook. In some cases she has modified it somewhat, in others she hadn't changed a thing. It is ones that were passed down from her mother where things can get a little gray. "How much salt goes in here, Mom?" "Oh, I don't know. A pinch or so." I've been successful recreating some of the dishes, not so much with others. Lizz has done a great job with a few - especially one of my favorites - cavatelli with broccoli (frozen chopped broccoli sauteed in oil and garlic and tossed with the pasta and crushed red) served with pan fried chicken cutlets. As with most of my mom's meals the ingredient list is short. Most of the dishes in the Christmas Eve meal have under 5 ingredients, some less. It comes down to execution and knowing just how many "pinches" to throw in. Sounds easy, right? Any good cook knows it's not that easy.

So although I will miss the scene at my brother's house, Lizz and I are looking forward to cooking this meal at our house this year under my the watchful eye of my mother. We will be cooking for about 12 - usually there's twice as many. I also will spending a lot of time in the kitchen, as opposed to sitting at the table with the men, drinking wine. But there are benefits. It will give us a chance to learn how to do this, so hopefully we can keep this tradition going when and if we are called to do so. Plus we get all the leftovers!

That's our story. There are a million variations and I would love to hear about yours.

Here's a few that caught my eye, Mario Batali and another interesting menu.

Plus, check out this great graphic novel at the Feast Of The Seven Fishes blog.